Memeorandum

October 12, 2012

Hillary's Bus Has Come In

A few days back I had wondered whether the embassy requests for extra security had stayed inside the State Dept (more likely) or actually reached the President (less likely). Obviously, blaing Hillary for the Benghazi debacle puts a torpedo in the Hillary 2016 battleship and risks alienating her husband, the guy who bailed out the Democratic convention. On the other hand, for Obama to claim ownership of the lax security decision could make for an awkward October and a miserable November. Tricky!

Biden has come under fire for saying at Thursday night's debate, "We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there."

The Cable asked Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes whether Biden was speaking for the entire Obama administration, including the State Department, which acknowledged receiving multiple requests for more Libya security in the months before the attacks. Rhodes said that Biden speaks only for himself and the president and neither of them knew about the requests at the time.

The State Department security officials who testified before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's panel Wednesday never said they had made their requests to the president, Rhodes pointed out. That would be natural because the State Department is responsible for diplomatic security, not the White House, he said.

Ouch. Well, Obama can do a lot more to promote Hillary's candidacy if he remains as incumbent and she remains a loyal, self-sacrificing team player, so sufficient unto the year are the elections therof.

However, this reassurance from Jay Carney does leave us wondering what Obama does all day:

MR. CARNEY: Well, as you know, we are very vigilant around anniversaries like 9/11. The President is always briefed and brought up to speed on all the precautions being taken.

Possible Team Obama spin - the President is briefed on the precautions being taken, but naturally he is not briefed on the precautions being overlooked. Naturally.

Will this Obama/Biden message of "We killed Osama but they forgot to remind us about the blowback" really carry them past the election? The buck stops where?

Comments

I considered it shocking when the Admin spin went straight from, "There was a huge protest and then a spontaneous attack we could not for see (despite occurring on the anniversary of 9/11) to, "There were absolutely no protesters, any trouble or noise at all in Benghazi which justifies our not providing any security" in the space of one conference call.

BTW-- the way the knives are being rapidly drawn and flipped open, the debate in Hofstra will not be a polite conversation... Mitt will be dumping on the whole incompetent crew by saying Bam and HildaBeast lied their asses off to coverup their incompetence, Bam may go full Monty like Biden, hell Bam may even pull a George Jefferson and call Mitt "Honky" before the debate's over.

BOzo made some remarks at the WH on Sept. 12, then proceed over to the State Department around 11:00 a.m.. His public schedule doesn't say how long he stayed, but it was surely long enough to personally get some answers if he wanted them.

DebinNC-- thank's for that 9/12 schedule catch Deb. I'd bet dollars to donuts at that 9/12 DOS meeting Bam and HILLARY! were briefed that it was a AQ ambush-- and they decided right then to get in the boat together and go BIG LIE about the video.

If the JEF goes Barry Badass, much hilarity will ensue. Betas trying to be something they're obviously not is funny and pathetic; but mostly pathetic. The ship may have come in on that long awaited meltdown on national television.

Tammy Bruce just said that George Stuffadickinmyass's comment about "Biden took control" as meaning a drunk just grabbed the steering wheel.

Truman: "The buck stops here."
JFK: "Ask not what your country can do for you..."
Reagan: "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
JEF: "The buck stops here, to some degree."

"but it was surely long enough to personally get some answers if he wanted them"

TOTUS programming is focused upon sidewalk chalk level response. I don't believe the query chip ever got out of beta testing. It's a one off, designed around the intellectual capabilities of the user. There really wasn't a need to spend a lot of time coding, given the parameters.

Tammy Bruce is on fire today like no other. "Jack Kennedy wasn't a friend of mine, but he was of Marilyn Monroe". "When there's a bad economy, it takes away the political voice of the regular citizen". I'm going out shortly to enjoy this splendid autumn day but it's difficult to leave this commentary.

Sununu on Megyn's show hammering Obama for skipping 60 percent of the CIA Briefings.

Megyn says the slender reed out thee to cover the President's rear end is Petraeus' remarks about it being the Video,. since that is what he told some Republican Congressmen.

Sununu rebuts, saying that the State Dept says that that message about a video did not come from them, and in adition it did not come up in the Hearings 2 days bnack. If it had come up in the Hearings maybe they might have a potential excuse but there was not 1 word from the testifiers in the Hearings about putting out the meme that the Video was the excuse.

Working for this League of Liars, "It's enough to drive a man to drink."

Today in FL:

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — U.S. Secret Service agent Aaron Francis Engler was found early Friday morning passed out on the sidewalk near the intersection of Brickell Avenue and 7th after President Barack Obama had left South Florida.

According to the arrest report, Miami police officers were in the area on an unrelated call when they noticed Engler passed out. When the officers checked on the man he grew combative and started to fight with officers, according to the police report.

The officers then took Engler to the ground and handcuffed him. Once secured, sources said the officers went through Engler’s pockets and discovered his Secret Service identification.

It's great that the WH braintrust thinks that proposition A is better than B:

A - 'I'm completely clueless and inept, because nobody told me I needed to do something. So I did nothing to prevent it, then lied about it after the fact'.

B - 'I was fully briefed, and actively coordinating with the State Dept; however, we weren't able to make adjustments to redeploy enhanced security quickly enough to prevent this vicious attack, and in the fog of confusion in the attacks aftermath several mistakes were made. We must redouble our efforts and stay vigilant as fringe groups of a demoralized Al Qaeda lash out in desperation'

The fact of a successful terrorist attack against the U.S. on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — a day, above all others, when security for American officials in volatile countries should be at its utmost — is demoralizing and infuriating.

After months of concern by diplomats in Libya about the country’s deteriorating security, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy employees were murdered by heavily armed and organized terrorists. The possibility the government could have prevented their deaths by responding to their pleas for greater security is devastating. …

What is equally evident is that, despite repeated concerns by diplomats working in Libya, the administration shortchanged security. And when the worst happened, it wasn’t willing to tell the truth to the American people.

And as of Wednesday, administration officials continued to insist that the consulate had adequate security.

The tragedy is magnified by the fact that Stevens, by all accounts, was passionately devoted to restoring Libya as a U.S. ally. He wanted to help build a democratic nation. But he wasn’t blind to the danger still posed by militant Islamists and other anti-American groups.

The murder of Stevens and his colleagues raises serious questions about the administration’s priorities and competence.

Remember Biden's remark on the tarmac about "rope-a-dope"? Well that is what Ryan did to him and Joe was laughing so hard he didn't even realize it. But Brokaw, Trippi, et.al. noticed and there is no MFM fight rigging.

Point 1--- Biden's "We were not told they wanted more security in Benghazi," and how that is completely contradictory to reality. She says the spin now from Carney is that the White House is saying it is only Biden and Obama who did not personally hear that, which is their supposedly legitimate excuse.

Keep banging away at it Megyn.

Point 2---Biden's excuse that Intel told them that it was a Video. She says we now all know that was not true. Talking to one of her regular intel guy. Lt Col Ralph Peters. He also knows it is all lies from the White House. Says that blaming it on Intel is the last refuge of a politician covering his rear end. Says Intel knew it was not the Video and so did the State Dept, and the White House's only strategy is to pretend that they did not know and to try to find a fall guy in the Intel community to fall on his sword as the excuse. Peter's makes the point that nobody in the White House has yet used the word Al Quaida in the last number of days because they are trying to maintain their claim that Al Quaida was vanquished by Obama.

Good to see that Megyn is still going strong in pursuing these White House lies.

Obama, Biden, Clinton, Reid and Pelosi have all engendered a negative culture of malpractice, malfeasance, and maladministration in the whole Federal bureaucracy and branches of government for which they are responsible.

Patton-- one of his grandsons lives in my town, and that grandson wrote a family history about 15-20 years ago-- the grandson never met Gen. Patton, but obviously relayed family stories in the book. Patton was a student of history and human nature-- he wasn't a cartoon character as the movie kind of portrayed. I couldn't guess what Patton would think about today's military-- the only I can say is that Patton inspired the 73 Easting maneuver in Desert Storm 1991. That "Left Hook" hell for leather armored breakout was pure Patton.

Hillary now saying that nobody wants to know more about what happened in Benghazi last month than she does.

Reporter notes that Hillary did not mention the group Al Quaida.

Guess those are the new talking points:

1) President and Biden were never told
2) Intel confusion to blame
3) We will continue to investigate to get to the bottom of this
4) Never mention Al Quaida, never mention Al Quaida, Never mention Al Quaida

Given that we are still experiencing rather deadly difficulty in determining which Afghan Mohametan savages are trustworthy after eleven years, do you think we might be a bit better off handing the Libyan Mahometan savage problem off to the Anglo/French authors of the Libyan coup? It's not as if AQ is particularly restricted regarding areas of operation within MENA and the British, French and Italians are all a bit better at extracting money to cover the costs of securing their interests from the threatening savages by carefully measuring the resources to be appropriated.

The Dem Talksperson on FOX, Mary Anne Walsh, discussing the Smirking Joe Biden, says Joe Biden did exactly what he needed to last night, which was to reenergize the Dem base which needed re-energizing because their enthusiasm had been dampened at the last debate. According to her, "Mission accomplished."

All you need to know about ElJefe's failing campaign is that the Dem's are relying on SloJo to "reenergize the base". I suspect this signifies some doubts among the faithful for BO's performance in the last two debates.

Daddy, I think the mission was accomplished as far as the base was concerned, but typical of liberals they failed to consider the law of unintended consequences. From what I'm picking up on the internet this morning, I think the female half of the muddle was appalled and horrified. Will jazzing up the base for a couple of days be a fair exchange for sending women like Althouse--who vote based on their feeeeeelings--to the fainting couch?

I really, really hope the Dem campaign once again falls for their own spin and they convince Obama to go out there next week and try to pull a Biden.

Deb Saunders on Dennis Miller's Show just said that people this morning who are saying that Biden's act did great last night are going to find themselves a lot lonelier in a week.

That prompts this observation about "Bipartisanship."

All this Election cycle we have had it constantly drummed into our ears 24/7, by Obama and the MSM, that"Bipartisanship" is the be all and end all of politics, and that the sole reason there is no "Bipartisanship" in politics today is completely the fault of intransigent Republican's.

With that in mind, how could anyone, watching that grossly, grossly disrespectful and dismissive display from Biden last night, possibly think that Biden could ever work in a "Bipartisan" fashion with anyone who holds even an iota of a different view about anything from his himself. Impossible. Biden's behavior last night proved that "Bipartisanship" with Biden is impossible.

I cannot imagine a better example to innately and viscerally prove to observers the impossibility of being "Bipartisan" with Joe Biden than what we saw last night.

I hope to heck our side starts an Ad and Talking Point campaign about the impossibility of being "Bipartisan" with such a repulsive character as Joe Biden.

From narc's link, this is what happens when you don't put a flea collar on the Krug:

Readers might also recall that Politico is also the employer of Roger Simon, a perpetually lazy columnist who created a poorly written attempt at satire in which he claimed GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan denounced his running mate as "Stench" out of frustration with the campaign. The piece was not labeled as a joke and many gullible liberals, including the deranged Paul Krugman, believed it was real.

Dennis says that after Biden's nastiness last night it may have reset the bar for nastiness to the MSM, and therefore if Obama goes nasty next debate, (which Dennis entirely expects he will) then the Press can say, "Yeah Obama was nasty, but he was not as nasty as Biden was, so it's completely legitimate and acceptable for Obama to have gone nasty."

The Dem Talksperson on FOX, Mary Anne Walsh, discussing the Smirking Joe Biden, says Joe Biden did exactly what he needed to last night, which was to reenergize the Dem base which needed re-energizing because their enthusiasm had been dampened at the last debate.

Energize the base, turn off the swing voters -- and, BTW, energize the opposition as well.

I know *I* will smile at the thought of turning Biden out as I cast my vote.

I think the reason why so many women had a negative and visceral reaction to Biden's behavior is that when we women have gotten dismissed by a man in the past it was most likely done in that fashion--derisive laughter, sneering, eye-rolling, etc. I would venture that a lot of women saw their ex-husbands in Biden last night. Not good. I only flipped over to it once during a commercial while watching the Yankees/Orioles and that was enough for me. I don't know how Ryan kept himself from bitch-slapping the fool, but he was wise not to take the bait.

Wouldn't it be great if Mitt was able to say that once he started attending the presidential Security Briefings, (which I believed happened way back while the Administration was still blaming protesters and the Video,) that in the briefings he attended no mention was ever made of protests and the Video, so I do not know where the White House heard that because that is not what I heard from the White House Briefers they should have been listening to.

I was watching something about the CIA a couple of nights ago on the Military Channel. The first show I watched was about the movie Argo and had the real people involved telling the story of how they got out. The second show was how the CIA works. I didn't look at the date the shows were first produced but I can tell you they probably weren't produced during the Obama presidency. One of the things the CIA does in its official capacity is meet with the President for a daily briefing on the potential dangers lurking out there.

How long can this crew keep stalling and saying the facts are not all in? They set the stage in Cairo with the embassy's statement blaming the *repulsive* video which was approved. Romney's comment was *before* the Benghazi attack. It seems the video excuse was to go on being used even in the face of obvious facts to the contrary.